Tuesday, November 10, 2009

What is awakening?

I had this thought today. All people are awake. It's just that some people are not aware of it.

Maybe you think like this: “I’m so stupid. I’m so fuckin lazy. I eat too much junk food. I watch too much crap on TV. I have so many stupid thoughts in my head. How can I be awake? When I wake up my life will change. I must take up my meditation practice again. To be awake is a completely different state of mind. It is definitely not this what I experience now. Eckhart and Buddha and Adyashanti and all the awakened people are not like me.”

Maybe you think like this: “I have studied so hard under so many years. I have been to so many meditation retreats. I have met many awakened teachers. Something is wrong with me. I haven’t really got it yet. What I experience here and now is not awakening. I have so many stupid thoughts coming into my head. Eckhart says that awakened people don’t have stupid thoughts in their heads. I really have to do something. I really have to intensify my meditation practice.”

Maybe you think like this: “ I have practiced meditation for years. I have met truly awakened teachers. I have read tons of spiritual literature. I am practically there. I am highly evolved. Most people are sleeping but I am not.”

What I try to say is that we are all awake, (when we are not asleep at night).We don’t have to put any particular teaching into practice. We don’t have to try the best we can. Problems begin when we believe that something is wrong with us, that we lack something and that we have to do something about it.

This is it. What is, is. Of course the totality is enormous compared to what we experience here and now with our senses, but still, this is it, right now.

We are here. We are awake. You are reading this, right now. You are staring at a computer screen. You are awake. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to try harder. You don't need to learn a method how to wake up. You don't have to learn how to laugh or smile. You don't have to realize anything.